The Street Residence

The southernmost stretch of U.S. Freeway 1, working greater than 110 miles from mainland Florida all through the Keys to Key West, has earned many names over time. It’s been referred to as the Florida Keys Abroad Freeway. The Freeway That Goes to Sea. And 15 years in the past it earned the best to be referred to as an All-American Street, the best nationwide designation a roadway can obtain.

However for these of us who love the Keys, whether or not as residents or common guests, the freeway has an easier and extra elemental designation: it’s the street residence.

Heading south from mainland Florida, the freeway leads right into a world of seemingly countless water and sky. On the left, the Atlantic Ocean unrolls to a blue horizon; on the best lies Florida Bay and, farther south, the Gulf of Mexico.

From the mainland to Key West, an astonishing 42 bridges leapfrog between islands. Certainly one of them, the Seven Mile Bridge at Marathon, stretches 6.79 miles throughout open water — the centerpiece of the route extensively generally known as a “bucket-list” drive.

But the Seven Mile Bridge wasn’t all the time a freeway bridge, and the Abroad Freeway wasn’t all the time a street.

It started as a railroad, the brainchild of millionaire Henry Flagler, who envisioned a prepare route connecting all of the Florida Keys and mainland Florida. Flagler impressed a military of males to spend seven years setting up the railroad’s bridges and land-based tracks, and in 1912 the primary prepare pulled into Key West.

However after solely two-plus a long time of carrying freight and rich vacationers, a lot of the railroad was badly broken in a 1935 hurricane. Three years later the Abroad Freeway debuted, constructed on a basis that included among the authentic railway spans.

The outdated railroad bridge at Bahia Honda State Park, as soon as a part of the Abroad Freeway, is now listed on the  Nationwide Register of Historic Locations. (Photograph by Andy Newman, Florida Keys Information Bureau)

In 1982, 37 authentic bridges together with the Seven Mile Bridge had been changed with wider ones (warmly welcomed by these of us with recollections of driving the scarily slim outdated spans). A couple of third of the unique ones had been eliminated through the mission, however three of these remaining — the Lengthy Key, Bahia Honda and Seven Mile bridges — are listed on the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations.

Touring down the Abroad Freeway, drivers can see lots of the outdated bridges working alongside the newer ones. And all of us who journey the street recurrently have our favourite stretches and sights — talisman vistas that provide a welcome foretaste of residence on the southward drive.

For instance, once I attain Islamorada within the Higher Keys, I can’t assist smiling as I go a very lovely cluster of latest oceanfront properties. Recognizing the pocket-sized island of Pigeon Key, nestled beneath the Outdated Seven Mile Bridge, evokes daydreams about dwelling in one among its tiny restored cottages.

Farther alongside the Outdated Seven Mile Bridge, defying pure logic, a gaggle of scraggly bushes sprouted on the weather-beaten pavement years in the past — and in some way managed to outlive. For me, they’ve turn out to be mascots (particularly the biggest, regionally generally known as Fred).

Fred and his companion tree are a welcome sight to drivers navigating the Florida Keys Abroad Freeway that parallels the outdated bridge. (Photograph courtesy of Howard Livingston)

Actually, each time I cross the newer bridge, I look anxiously over at Fred and every of his shrub-like cohorts to verify they’re nonetheless hanging on.

Simply earlier than Large Pine lies one other of the freeway’s prime vistas. At Bahia Honda State Park, a portion of the outdated Bahia Honda Bridge arches up towards the sky, a stark and throat-catchingly lovely reminder of the Keys’ previous glories.

To earn All-American Street standing beneath the Nationwide Scenic Byways program, a street will need to have nationally vital archeological, cultural, historic, pure, leisure and/or scenic qualities — and should possess options that don’t exist anyplace else, making it a customer vacation spot in itself.

The Abroad Freeway definitely matches the invoice. It was first Florida street to attain All-American standing, and the designation was — and stays in the present day — prestigious certainly.

However irrespective of how spectacular that honor, it could actually’t eclipse the standing the Abroad Freeway already possesses within the hearts of Keys residents and people who want they had been. It’s our freeway, our connection to one another and the surface world — and all the time, our street residence.